July 2009

Seek Ye First

     Many of you, I am sure, have heard the verse, "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." (Proverbs 22:6). I heard it as a child but it has only been as an adult when I have really understood it. As you know if you regularly read my blog, I have had difficulty attending church as I knew it with all the praise singing, the sermons, and the spoken prayers. And, I am sure, I still have some of those same issues. But, I have now surprised myself by turning back in that direction, needing to walk down that path and explore it with new eyes and a more developed voice.

       This returning need has been brought about by not only the natural course of my journey, but by several experiences I have lately had. It seems our general culture has come to stand behind a phrase: "spiritual but not religious". They want something bigger than themselves but they don't want the discipline of religion or the box they feel religion will put them into. Or, maybe they want God without having to deal with God's children. They want their individualistic beliefs without having to work those beliefs out in community. Basically, they want it their way, freedom of choice. Isn't that what our culture is all about? Your way, all the time? No real commitment, no rules, a spirituality you can design and no one will tell you that you are wrong. Why? Because we have taken right and wrong and made much of it grey. Yes, we each have the light Quakers keep talking about but we also have the capacity to do evil too. I think we have taken what is in the Bible, cut out all that stuff about sinning and doing wrong, and only have kept that feel good, God is love, readings. We have forgotten our conviction.

        Maybe it was a necessary part of my journey that I needed to let go of the idea of right and wrong and just explore for a while but I have come back to black and white knowing that even while the world is full of color, there are still morals, there are still right and wrong ways to behave and we have become so caught up in how we look, we have forgotten to pay attention to who we are. After all, it is not what goes into a person that makes them unclean, but what comes out. We have become so caught up in not offending someone, we have forgotten to lovingly call ourselves and each other back when we are doing something that God specifically told us not to. How can we be so afraid of what others think and ignore God?

         For several years now, I have not read the Bible on a regular basis outside of seminary as I had been taught to do as a child. Lately though, I find I have really needed to pull it off the shelf, open it up, and take in what it says on those pages. At a time in my life when so much feels like shifting sand, I have needed the grounding, the truth, the Bible holds. I have needed to hear God's voice in its pages filled with directions, guidance, and love. We wonder what God wants us to do so many times and it's there, waiting to be read: don't be rude, seek understanding, watch what you say, love the Lord your God. While there are many questions yet unanswered in my life, I know that if I listen for God's voice and ground myself in his written word as I was taught, then at least I know I have sure footing as I seek what is to come.

          In the church I grew up in, not only were we encouraged to read the Bible on our own, but we were also encouraged to have a personal relationship with God that was vibrant and growing. Even if that relationship was struggling and we were wrestling with God, the struggle was welcome too. On Sunday nights after our high school choir, "One Heart", finished practicing, we would all troop over across the parking lot and attend the Sunday night services. We weren't Pentecostal, but you could raise your hands when you sang and show your emotion. After the sermon, the pastor would sometimes invite anyone up who needed to talk something over with God up to the alter steps that lined the front. You could bring someone to pray with you or someone might even join you there. If you cried, no problem, there were Kleenexes waiting for you. On occasion, we would also have people in the service give their testimonies. In fact, when our choir went on tour every year, two different students would give their testimonies at every concert. We were taught to stand up and express our faith and that our relationship with God was a journey worth talking about.

        So perhaps you can understand my confusion in a recent conversation when people were discussing that the reason for religion is to give people answers for the way things are. I grant you, they may have meant something entirely different by "religion" than I do, but is not the point of religion the belief in God himself? Isn't religion about knowing Him? In another conversation, someone said that the moral concepts of the religion he practiced growing up is so much a part of him that he doesn't participate anymore as if the moral concepts was what it was all about. How can we practice religion and entirely miss the whole point of coming to know God? Is that why so many people are spiritual but not religious? They want something to believe in, the unseen dimension if you will, but without the legalistic moral code and unsatisfying answers of theological judgment.

       In my own walk with God, I have really struggled with the idea that if I stepped across some line, I would suddenly be out of favor with God. I was so concerned with how I lived my life, I forgot to live my life. I learned God gives freedom, not chains, love, not dogma. But while we walk free, we need to remember there are still hard places, dangers we could get ourselves into. The relationship is the entire point, but in that relationship, God is there beside us, helping us along, letting us know what to avoid, how to conduct ourselves so we can enjoy the really important and long lasting things in life. He guides for our good, not to make us conform so we all look the same. His instructions are for our benefit, they are not there to weigh us down but to lift us up. As humans, we see from such a small perspective and knowing God's is so much wider, we can rely on His/Her perspective to help us through where we might fall on our own. But we listen not to make it through life, but because we love God and God loves us. It's for that dynamic and growing relationship, the love shared that we breathe, and blink, and grow each day.

        My suspicion is that some people look at the world from their beliefs and see it in black and white, sinner and saved and see the world in judgment. But I think a better way to see things is in color, through the eyes of God, over filling with love and passion for His people. Everything else comes after that. "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matthew 6:33).

Last Updated: 12/30/2011